September 2006 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

$1 sale at Sky Publishing
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

http://www.shopatsky.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=142 pw

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News, 14 SEP 2006
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

News, Thursday, 14 SEP 2006 Star Party Saturday Weather permitting SLAS will host a public star party Saturday evening at SPOC. SLAS's very own walking/talking encyclopedia of astronomy Dave Bernson will speak on constellations and mythology starting at 7:00. Observing to start at 8:00. http://slas.us/displayevent.asp?EventID=849 +++++ SPOC News SPOC director Bruce Grim reports the observatory will be closed for the winter from 1 November through 28 February. +++++ Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Reaches Planned Flight Path NASA's newest spacecraft at Mars has completed the challenging half-year task of shaping its orbit to the nearly circular, low-altitude pattern from which it will scrutinize the planet. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/pressreleases/20060912a.html +++++ A "Genetic Study" of the Galaxy Galactic bulge and disc stars shown to have different oxygen abundances. http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-34-06.html +++++ Electric Ice Imagine looking inside a million clouds. That's what NASA researchers have done using the TRMM satellite to explore the strange connection between lightning and ice. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/13sep_electricice.htm?list864576 +++++ Finishing Up Scuff Work and Heading for 'Emma Dean' Opportunity is healthy and just over 100 meters from "Victoria Crater." The rover completed robotic arm work on a scuff mark it made on sol 919. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll.html#sol928 +++++ Spirit Monitors Dust and Searches for Clouds Spirit is healthy and continues to make progress on the rover's winter science campaign. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol950 +++++ Pluto Gets an Asteroid Number Without fanfare, the September 7th batch of circulars from the Minor Planet Center assigns number 134340 to Pluto. http://skytonight.com/news/home/3888097.html +++++ Puny Black Holes Can Eject Milky Way's Stars New calculations suggest the giant black hole at the heart of the galaxy is not the only bully flinging stars out into space. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn10020-puny-black-holes-can-eject… +++++ NASA Sees Rapid Changes in Arctic Sea Ice NASA data shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrunk abruptly by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/sep/HQ_06315_sea_ice.html +++++ Changes in Solar Brightness Too Weak to Explain Global Warming Changes in the Sun's brightness over the past millennium have had only a small effect on Earth's climate... http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/brightness.shtml +++++ Astronomers Trace the Evolution of the First Galaxies in the Universe A systematic search for the first bright galaxies to form in the early universe has revealed a dramatic jump in the number of such galaxies around 13 billion years ago. http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=939 http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/44/ +++++ New Superlens Opens Door to Nanoscale Optical Imaging... (Thanks to Siegfried Jachmann for passing this on.) A group of scientists is giving new relevance to the term "sharper image" by creating a superlens... http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/04/21_superlens.shtml +++++ Cosmic Archeology Uncovers the Universe's Dark Ages Astronomers using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii have looked 60 million years further back in time than any other astronomers, to find the most distant known galaxy in the universe. http://www.subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2006/09/13/index.html +++++ ESA Experiments With Spaceflight Participant Ansari to ISS Scheduled to lift off on 18 September entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari will be the test subject for four ESA experiments during her stay on board the International Space Station. http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMQRH7LURE_research_0.html +++++ Clouds Over Titan This image depicts Saturn's moon Titan as seen by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer after closest approach on a July 22, 2006, flyby. http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2268 +++++ Of Craters and Erosion: Opportunity Examines "Beagle" This 360-degree view shows one of Opportunity's last stops on the now-familiar surface of Meridiani Planum before reaching different terrains associated with the very large "Victoria Crater." http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20060913a.html +++++ Stereo Version of Spirit's 'Everest' Panorama NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit used its panoramic camera (Pancam) to record a 360-degree vista, dubbed the "Everest" panorama, from the top of "Husband Hill" in early October 2005. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20060911b.html +++++ NASA Lands A Space On Monopoly Rent, own or build a community at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Deed title price: $1.8 million. http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Lands_A_Space_On_Monopoly_999.html +++++ Russian Duma Rejects Madonna Space Holiday Russia's parliament voted Wednesday against a motion to send Madonna to the International Space Station in 2008. http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russian_Duma_Rejects_Madonna_Space_Holida… +++++ Burning Man 2006 From Space http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=939 +++++ ************************************************** ************************************************** Free Telescopes For SLAS Members SLAS has several scopes available for free, long term loan to current SLAS members who have belonged to SLAS for at least 30 days. http://slas.us/membership_benefits.htm +++++ Images and Data From Cassini-Huygens At:s http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/latest/index.cfm http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-releases.cfm +++++ Information On The Mars Rovers At: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html +++++ SLAS 2006 Star Party Schedule http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/LOCAL.HTML +++++ SSA / UMNH 2006 Southern Utah Public Star Party Schedule http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/STARPARTIES.HTML +++++ ************************************************** News is being sent to you because of your affiliation with the Salt Lake Astronomical Society or because you are subscribed to the Utah Astronomy Listserve. To unsubscribe please send your request to paw at wirelessbeehive dot com. Check out my NASA Solar System Ambassador web site at: http://www.umnh.utah.edu/utahsky and mirrored at http://utahastro.info/ For astronomy clubs in Utah see: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/UTAHCLUBS.HTML For the Utah Astronomy Listserve see: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy ************************************************** -- Patrick Wiggins NASA Solar System Ambassador to Utah & NE Nevada paw at wirelessbeehive dot com http://www.umnh.utah.edu/utahsky http://utahastro.info/ 435.882.1209 801.918.9092

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MPO Canopus Study Group - interest?
by Canopus56 11 Sep '06

11 Sep '06

I am interested in starting a Salt Lake City area MPO Canopus study group. For those unaware of it, MPO Canopus is astrometry and photometry reduction software. http://www.minorplanetobserver.com/ A predicate question is whether there are enough MPO owners in Utah to warrant such a group. I would like to do an initial survey of interest. If you are interested in such a user group, that would meet every two or three weeks initially at the City Library, please post here or send me an email. The general idea would be for users to give short presentations on those parts of the program that they have mastered. My own interest is that I have been working through the manual trying to learn it and am a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps if there was a small local study group, all of us could move forward with reductions. - Kurt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] MPO Canopus Study Group - interest?
by Michael Carnes 11 Sep '06

11 Sep '06

>Thanks, Mike. I know about them and their discussion >groups. It's still nice to have some local hands on >contact. You can only do so much over the internet. - >Kurt Hi Kurt, I figured you'd find some people around (most likely those with permanent setups) who'd be interested. Seems to me that AAVSO would have so reasonable guidelines for getting started. Glad you already knew about them. Some of their "semipro" things where they team up professionals with amateurs might provide some tie-ins with the growing astronomy program at the U.

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[Fwd: [Launch Alert] White Sands Launch]
by Patrick Wiggins 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

If the Clear Sky Clock is accurate we in Utah may have a chance to see this. pw LAUNCH ALERT Brian Webb Ventura County, California E-mail: kd6nrp(a)earthlink.net Web Site: http://www.spacearchive.info 2006 September 8 (Friday) 06:13 PDT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WHITE SANDS LAUNCH As mentioned in my previous Launch Alert, a dual missile firing is slated for tomorrow morning (SEP 9) from White Sands, New Mexico as part of a test of the THAAD missile defense system. The demonstration involves the launch of a target missile and a THAAD interceptor sometime between 04:00 and 06:00 MDT (03:00-05:00 PDT/ 10:00-12:00 UTC). I don't have any information regarding the intended missile flight profiles or launch times. However, assuming one or more of the missiles attains a maximum altitude of 50 miles (264,000 feet) and the lighting conditions are correct, the sunlit missile exhaust would theoretically be visible as far away as 692 miles. Locations within a 692 mile radius of the launch site include San Diego, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; and all of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The best time for observers in outlying areas to look for the test and its aftermath is probably between 05:00 MDT (04:00 PDT/11:00 UTC) and local sunrise. For advice on photographing missile launches, go to www.spacearchive.info/vafbphoto.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright Â© 2006 Brian Webb. All rights reserved. This newsletter may be distributed in its entirety without restriction. Excerpts may be not be reprinted or posted elsewhere without prior permission. _______________________________________________ To subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter, go to: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/launch-alert Questions and comments regarding this newsletter and editorial contributions should be directed to kd6nrp(a)earthlink.net

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Smoke and observing this weekend
by Canopus56 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

When the current Utah weather front moves through, I was interested in going out this weekend for some telescope time. There appears to be a large amount of smoke in the air from a mega smoke plume that stretches from western Canada to the Eastern U.S. http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm I'm told the smoke is being captured and intensified by the Salt Lake portion of the Wastach Front. I was wondering if those of you off the SLC Wasatch Front proper were seeing any between smoke extinction conditions. Can the smoke layer be escaped this weekend by going north, south or to the Unitas? - Kurt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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M-45 from a new angle
by Patrick Wiggins 07 Sep '06

07 Sep '06

Not a bad shot but even better when you consider how it was taken: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2252 ps

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Off Topic-Computer Problem
by Olhomorto＠aol.com 06 Sep '06

06 Sep '06

With a group like ours that possesses such a wide and diverse range of skills and knowledge, maybe there is someone out there who can provide me with some substantive direction regarding a problem my wife had on our family computer using Microsoft Word. While typing a sentence in a word doc the "view" suddenly went to "outline", a hyperlink to a "subfile" was created, and all the information previously typed disappeared. Neither the "master" nor the "subfile" appear to contain anything. The directions in "help" for manipulating outlines and master/subdocuments have been unsuccessful. There is nothing in the recycle bin and a search for any files containing key words and/or phrases from the original document doesn't yield anything. Is there a way to retrieve what seems to be lost information? Internet searches and attempts to contact Microsoft are so wildly frustrating. Mike Bailey

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Fwd: Telescopes for sale
by Richard Tenney 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

--- Aaron Orullian <OrullianAD(a)ldschurch.org> wrote: > Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:46:06 -0600 > From: "Aaron Orullian" <OrullianAD(a)ldschurch.org> > To: "Rich Tenney" <retenney(a)Yahoo.com> > Subject: Telescopes for sale > > I have two telescopes for sale and need to know if > any of the membership is > interested. I have a Coronado Solar Telescope with > tripod - I want $375 for > this scope - retail $500 without tripod. > > I also have a 14 inch Mead Schmidt Cassegrain 200LX > GPS with UHTC coatings, > tripod, dolly transporting case and all accessories. > The scope is brand new and > I haven't used it or set it up. I paid $6500 for > this which included the travel > case. But will make someone a deal. Due to my > current physical health problems > it is too big for me to handle. My phone is > 801-426-6877 or work 240-1538. If > anyone is interested. Thanks __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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SMART-1 in visible light?
by Patrick Wiggins 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

So far the only confirmed SMART-1 impact sighting I have heard of was one in the infrared using a 3.6 meter scope in Hawaii. I have not heard of any _confirmed_ visible light sightings. Has anyone here heard different? I'll be interested to see if LRO (http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov) will be able to find any trace of the impact. With half meter image resolution I rather imagine it will. Thanks, pw

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